Vietnam, RoK look to increase two-way trade

The signing of cooperation deals between the businesses of Vietnam and the RoK (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and
Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Paik
Un-gyu sought measures to complete the two countries’ trade goal of 100 billion
USD by 2020 during their talks in Hanoi on March 22.

The ministers recognized the impressive growth in two-way trade in 2017
and the first two months of 2018, holding that this was the results of fruitful
cooperation between the two ministries in implementing the directions issued by
the two countries’ leaders.

They agreed on the need to continue working closely in building joint
action programmes in industry, trade and energy while coordinating in designing
and carrying out effective policies and measures to promote bilateral economic
and trade partnership.

The ministers concurred to work together in setting up a four-party
cooperation mechanism between their ministries and the ministries of
agriculture to create favourable conditions for affiliation in trading of farm
products, especially the export of farm products of Vietnam to the RoK to
reduce the Southeast Asian country’s trade deficit with the RoK.

At the same time, the RoK will also continue supporting Vietnam in developing
the support industry share its experience in investment and development
policies in the industry, especially for sectors of Vietnam’s interests like
automobiles, electronics, garments and textiles, and footwear.

The two sides will strengthen cooperation in power, energy safety, power
saving, and climate change response and put it in cooperative documents to be
signed during this occasion.

The RoK will continue assisting Vietnam to train high-quality human
resources for industry, oil and gas, and renewable energy.

They will expand cooperation in trade defence in the context that the
two sides are integrating deeply into the world and facing many defence
measures from other countries.

Following the talks, the two ministers witnessed the signing of five documents
between the two ministries, along with 10 deals between enterprises of both
sides.

According to the
Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade between Vietnam and the RoK jumped from
500 million USD in 1992 to 61.5 billion USD in 2017, making the RoK the second
largest trader of Vietnam after China.

The RoK is now the
fourth largest market and second biggest importer of Vietnam.

In 2017, two-way
trade reached 61.5 billion USD, up 41 percent year on year, including Vietnam’s
exports of 14.8 billion USD, a rise of 30 percent over 2016 and its imports of
46.7 billion USD, up 45.3 percent year on year.

In the first two
months of 2018, Vietnam earned 2.8 million USD in the RoK market, a surge of
45.6 percent over the same time last year.-VNA